Abstract:[Background] Banana Fusarium wilt is a devastating disease caused by the soil-borne hyphomycete, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc). Due to the low production limitation of resistant cultivars and attempts to control Fusarium wilt with chemical fungicides have proved uneconomic and are environmentally unfriendly, using novel strategies such as biological control is attractive alternatives to conventional control methods. [Objective] In order to select dark septate endophytes strains that showed significantly antagonistic effect on the Foc growth and to enrich the microbial resources for biocontrol. [Methods] Five dark septate endophytes strains were selected for evaluation of banana growth promotion ability and control efficacy against the Fusarium wilt through culture dish and pot culture method, and the dominant strain LS1 was identified based on morphological characteristics and ITS sequence analysis. [Results] All the five dark septate endophytes strains have the ability to carry out banana growth promoting activities after the inoculation, but the strain LS1 function most notably, which indicated by the seedling fresh weight and dry weight were increased by 47.36% and 42.40%, separately. The disease control efficacies of LS1 against the Fusarium wilt was found up to 86.19% in the culture dish and 63.19% in the pot culture method, which were significantly higher than other dark septate endophytes strains. Morphological observation and ITS sequence alignment analysis results showed that the LS1 strain belonged to Cladosporium chlorocephalum. [Conclusion] These results indicated that the strain LS1 promised to provide a new biological control method for banana Fusarium wilt disease.
